if you get a physical copy of a game, that requires Steam, after you link it to your Steam account, can you throw away the CD and have the chance to download it from Steam???

9 years ago

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Yes. But physical copies are cool.

9 years ago
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no, they're not.

9 years ago
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9 years ago
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but if you buy a physical copy of a steam game, all you own is paper and plastic. ;)

9 years ago
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ur phone is only plastic and circuits, throw it away, who needs it

9 years ago
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my phone is a little computer which is needed for everything phone-related. without the phone i could not use my phone, if you get what i mean. the retail box of a steam game is more or less worthless. the license is the important part, and it works very well without the retail box. :)

9 years ago
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without the phone i could not use my phone

That's deep, and yes, i know what you mean :P

9 years ago
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But you can use the disc to y' know, put it under a glass, or under your chair.

9 years ago
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9 years ago
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i think in some cases you can (fully or partially), and in some cases you really just get a key. my point is, that you really don't own the game, even with the box in your hands. so you might aswell buy it digitally. less plastic production, better for the environment, you know. :)

9 years ago
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9 years ago
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Actually, box with a CD is also only a licence. After you buy it you can download game from torrents, and if police sees game on your PC they can't deal with it after you show them box and CD itself.

EDIT: but in some cases in box is CD and steam code, which means you can add it to your library or just give it away since you can install game without steam

9 years ago
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The nature of torrents is generally that you both download and upload. Laws vary from country to country, but generally distribution of copyrighted materials without permission is against the law, even if the law entitles you to own a "backup" copy (which was the case in the US before the DMCA, which then disallowed any form of copy protection circumvention).

9 years ago
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In Poland you can have anything on your PC within 24 hours since downloading. So you can basically delete and download again day by day if you only have that good internet and will.

9 years ago
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24 hours rule is bullshit made up by warez sites worldwide.
Downloading copyrighted music, movies etc. is technically legal by Polish law, but uploading is not, so torrents are still out in most cases.
Pirating software is not allowed, period.

9 years ago*
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You can torrent without uploading. It's kind of a jerk move, but you can.

9 years ago
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This is true, but unfortunately many torrent-related lawsuits have involved crude tactics like simply gathering IP addresses from the swarms and sending out letters to ISPs en masse without verifying actual participation.

I had a thought a while ago that if you wanted to be a trouble maker, you could write a bot that scraped new torrents for common things like redistributables (DirectX, PhysX, etc.) and purposefully only seeded portions of those files and not a single byte of the actual copyrighted game/software, but it turns out that would violate the EULA of DirectX and probably others.

9 years ago
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You know what you can do with disc after you put key into steam and GabeN disables your account?

You can throw box and dvd right in GabeN's face in a fit of rage.
Or use them as Xmas-tree decorations (but that you can do right now).

One thing you won't be able to do, is play game.

9 years ago
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Actually, the carbon footprint of digital games can be greater than that of physical games.

9 years ago
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That would be under extremely specific circumstances.

9 years ago
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Not really all that specific according to the article I'm reading right now.

9 years ago
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I think I may have found the article you're referring to, or at least one that references the same study.

The study makes a couple of assumptions that murder it in my eyes.
"Various factors contribute to the increased carbon footprint of a downloaded game, such as the electricity used by the downloader"

It seems the author of the study may be making the assumption that a system downloading a game is only being used to download a game, which isn't necessarily true. The study focused on the PS3, and as far as I know you can have downloads going in the background while you're doing other things. In the case of the PC that assumption just seems a bit silly. The author of the ExtremeTech article even acknowledges this by stating:

"Other factors that are just now becoming widespread, such as ... being able to use your console while a game downloads in the background"

I wanted to read the original study, and although the author claimed it could be downloaded freely, I couldn't find any non-paid source for it. I did find the author's blog post about it though.

One thing he said in response to a comment is:
"We're not claiming that home router electricity use and emissions go up with bigger file sizes. We are allocating the total electricity used over the year by that router in proportion to how much data is being transferred over the year. So a 1 GB file is allocated 1/8 as much electricity use and emissions as an 8 GB file."

So basically, if you download 1000GB in a year, the author of the study is allocating 1% of your electricity use for your modem and router to a 10GB game download. While this is seemingly sensible at first glance, the author also acknowledges that said download doesn't significantly increase the overall energy used. If you went to your grandma's house for the weekend, who uses her Windows 98 computer to only check her email using say 2GB of bandwidth a year, and downloaded a 10GB Steam game while you were over, your game would then be responsible for over 80% of her electricity usage for the modem/router using the same logic. If you bought a physical game while you were at your grandma's house, her electricity usage and carbon emissions would still be near the same.
.
The study used a 2010 figure for their average monthly bandwidth consumption of 15GB/month, thus their 8.8GB PS3 download was allocated ~5%, roughly 18 days, of the yearly energy use of the router (8.8GB/180GB(15*12)). This internet electricity usage figure accounted for 99.5% of the total carbon emissions in the study for the digital game download.

9 years ago*
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I know there are some old retail games whose keys can be activated on Steam as a bonus digital copy, but for the most part retail games distributed with Steam keys are Steamworks integrated and therefore require Steam to install and play.

9 years ago
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No, you can't install the game without steam. If steam is not there, the game will generally install it for you. The game won't be playable until it has contacted the steam servers (and you'll need to be logged in for this to be doable). On top of all that, the game will usually lack important files, so you'll need to download these anyway. The reason for the lack of these files is to avoid day 0 piracy, until the game is officially released it won't be playable. Also, if the game has been out for long enough for a few patches to have been released, steam will just download all the patches before the game becomes playable. In many cases launch day patches will be big enough as to more or less make installing the game from a disc pointless, even if you're on a really slow connection.

9 years ago
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This is not so for all games. I own a few physical copies that do install without steam. Its true that the majority will require steam to play/update, but most definitely not all.

9 years ago
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But those are not pure steam games, are they, but rather games that has both a steam, and a non-steam version. Like say DoW: Soulstorm. So it's to my knowledge only true for a handful of older titles, where the CD-key was at some point turned into a steam-activated key, but which were not originally intended to be that.

9 years ago
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The physical games I have that can install and be played without steam are Counter strike, blue shift, opposing force, ricochet, bards tale and some others. So I'll stick to what I said before that not all steam games require steam to play/update, albeit they are few in number.

9 years ago
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Counter strike, Blue shift and the other HL 1 engine games pre-date steam, so they are a bit of a special case. You can use the CD-key for any of them, and you'll get the whole set. But these (as well as Bard's Tale) are special cases, exceptions, and it does not hold true for modern games that use steamworks, just a handful of older titles that were never originally intended to be steamworks titles, but where the developers made it possible to activate the games. There are also a couple more games where steamworks support was added post-launch, and where other DRM and/or multiplayer services were made unusable for one reason or another (CoH and the Batman games fall under this category).

9 years ago
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Well thanks for the info

View attached image.
9 years ago
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The Steam ones can be disappointing though. I bought Left 4 Dead 2 for $25 physically back when it was still $40 on Steam. The DVD case was flimsy as they had cut holes in the plastic to make it more eco friendly. All it had in it besides the disc was a card with the Steam key. Although it was a physical, tangible release, it was apparent they didn't put much care into it besides getting you the Steam key and a DVD to save you a bit of downloading.

9 years ago
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No download saving, also, have another patch of update.

9 years ago
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Yeah, especially with frequently patched games like everything Valve has ever released. The disc becomes more and more useless as the game becomes more and more updated.

I'd have to think that a Skyrim disc would save you a lot of download time though, since that game's patches haven't surpassed he size of the original game.

9 years ago
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Yeah, I had Dead Island physical copy, but I realized on steam it's twice as much of data haha.

9 years ago
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yep true and physical copy cant be hacked :p unlike steam

9 years ago
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with a physical copy you only own a DVD mate, the game is never yours, youu can't modify it, you are always buying only a licence.

9 years ago
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9 years ago*
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You never own a game at all even if you buy a DVD you get a licenced copy, you can't go around making a profit with that software because if somebody else's intelectual Property, you can't also go around boasting with your friends that you made the game or something like that, if the DVD gets broken you need to buy another license. sure you can mod granted on the licence, that's why we have steam workshop.

9 years ago
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Pretty sure that if the game does not use Steam DRM, you can run it even if steam is not letting you login for whatever reasons. Just go to installed directory and run the Exe.

If the game uses steam DRM, then you can't run it without steam regardless of whether you have digital or hard copy of the game.

9 years ago
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Yes, they are cool.

9 years ago
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mass producing plastic garbage is not cool for the environment. i'm glad we move away from that. :)

9 years ago
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Actually, plastic is a by product of petroleum.
so you make plastic as garbage, and use it. which is kind of environmental. until you stop driving your car and getting power from the "wall" ...
i do agree that all plastic should be reused, as well as anything else.

9 years ago
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Plastic isn't a by-product. It's made from a by-product.

9 years ago
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And making probably releases tons of CO2, as well as deleting it.

9 years ago
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Your belief in the relevance of CO2 makes me smile.

9 years ago
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We're killing our only planet, I am worried of all unnecessary stuff. Maybe it's kinda irrational, but I don't want my grandchildren to live in an postapo.

9 years ago
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I handily agree with you about killing the planet. Market logic does not account longterm survivability. Yet wheter we have any effect on climate is another point (apart of poisoning a good part of our biotopes which we are really good at)

9 years ago
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we do have an effect on climate. both warming and dimming. how much an effect? that's a different story

9 years ago
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I'm shocked by peoples denial of the CO2 climate impact.
<-Chemical engineer who through his work comes into contact with people who do actual proper research on the subject, rather than just listening to people with opinions.

9 years ago
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Please go forward and proof claims :)

As for myself i just keep it simple: people claim the pro, people claim the contra. Ergo: there is no hard proof. And science dictates that only a full consent on things can be considered proven. So don't lean overboard and claim things which clearly fall into the realm of belief.

9 years ago
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By that logic, we should also say that evolution is not really a thing, we should pretty much skip all of quantum mechanics, relativity and heck, even Newtonian physics can be ignored. Also, you're wrong about your definition "proven" in scientific terms. The theory of evolution for an example is pretty much considered proven (Theory has a different meaning in scientific terms than in "every day speak" terms, basically, when something is considered a scientific theory, it's close enough to proven to be more or less be considered proven. That's not to say that the model is complete.

Slightly simplified, we can consider the proof for the theory of global warming close to how we've looked at weather systems. Models are designed around data, then the models, they are fit around known data points. Then we check to see how our models fit with future data points (basically the models are used to make predictions). This can by the way be done in both directions, you can fit your models with certain known data points at one point in history, and then check how well they fit with previous data points, or you can see how they fit with future data points (when you collect them, obviously). Then you modify the models based on your observations, and keep doing that, until you get a model that is able to accurately predict future data points. And based on this, we can consider the theory of global warming pretty much proven. If we can't consider it proven based on this, then we can't consider anything that is directly observable proven (and even then there are many things that we can't consider proven even though they are observable)

9 years ago
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And yes, there is a scientific consensus here. source

If you can't read it (I think that one is open to the public), I can post quotes from the article.

9 years ago
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Environmental eng here. not far from chemical, trust me that i took enough courses from "your" faculty.

regarding evolution, it is not proven, although i don't think any other theory comes close. i'm a fan of it and read about quite a lot. even started reading "the origin of species". maybe will finish it someday ;)

as for CO2 impact. there is an impact, like you said, but how much? we don't know how much, and even more importanly in which direction (heard of global dimming)

i disagree with z0rg, but he does have a point...

9 years ago
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Well no, the theory of evolution is not 100% proven, but when something is called a theory in scientific terms, its still as close to proven as we think we'll be able to get (simplified terms, obviously, but theory is the highest degree of certainty. If we start to treat theories as guesses, then modern science would quite simply not work).

We still have data to go on from when CO2 levels were high, based on ice core samples (which can tell us a lot of how the climate used to be). And in terms of direction, based on what I've learnt from talking to people who do research on the subject at KTH, we are still relatively certain that we know which direction it is going, both based on what we've been able to observe, and according to the models that we have.

Global dimming, if my memory serves (based on the courses I had to take at KTH) was largely based on the direction that the global temperature was taking from before we had proper filters in factories and such, with sulfur-based particles being the big offender. When we started cleaning the outgoing exhausts from factories (which originally was done to deal with acidic rain and its effects on the environment), the heating effect caused by CO2 overtook the dimming effect particles in the atmosphere.

The biggest problem with the environment debate right now is the fact that the people who just base their "information" on opinions. There is a big shout-feast in media, with major corporations that have something to lose from demands to lower CO2 emissions sponsoring the people who support their side (much like how tobacco companies tried to deal with criticism when it was found out that tobacco smoking caused cancer, but on a larger scale). That's not to say that the other side is doing much better, people who know what they are talking about, who actually work with trying to figure out the effects are often pushed aside by people who just have opinions.

9 years ago
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agree with you on the first paragraph (whats KTH?)

also true (second paragraph).

third paragraph half true. it is indeed caused by particles, but we don't know enough. have you heard of cloud condensation nuclei? not all particles create clouds, some do some don't. the basic theory is that more clouds cause more back-scatter of radiation - hence dimming. however, if a white cloud is over the polls it doesn't make a diff. if it is over something dark like the oceans (which are black btw) it makes a big difference. and that's just one point unknown...

and the fact the people use "opinions" infuriates me also. but you can't win against that. you can only fight on their grounds.
why does the new "health" experts are people who have FB page? it feels like that is the only req and people will do what you tell them...

9 years ago
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KTH is the royal institute of technology (Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan), which is where I've studied, and also done some work.

I had not heard of that particular term for it (I only think I've heard the Swedish term for cloud condensation nuclei). What you say about location of clouds does make sense (based on the whole blackbody/whitebody/greybody radiation thing). I've not heard anything about the more precise effects of cloud locations though, and I don't think any of the literature I have here at home deals with it.
Just taking a glance at the models that are being used to predict climate, the ones I'm looking at do seem to take into account to some degree. This is just based on a very quick glance though, I don't have access to any good sources right now (and I won't until in a few weeks, I'm currently not working with anything that gives me access to them. Sewage sludge, yay).
Should we not be able to have a relatively good idea where clouds will form, and from what, based on wind patterns? We've been able to get relatively good models for calculating the movement of freon in the atmosphere, and based on that and known decay rates have a good idea about their effect on the ozone layer and also a good estimate for the healing rate of the ozone layer (freons are, for those not in the know, not entirely phased out yet). Would not similar models be applicable for other particles? They would not be 100% accurate obviously, no model can be that, but they would give a good estimate.

9 years ago
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hmm, hard questions.
since not all particles create clouds, and we still don't know which create and which don't we are in a problem.
some create larger drops some smaller, see the problem?
wind pattern is "easy" so does RH. but still not enough, not sure about the current models, haven't read about it in a while.

and i like sludge, will like too hear what you are doing. like = like to know the new stuff around to treat it... My country is (supposedly) the leading in the world in using recycled water for agriculture irrigation, i think above 90% of the sewage is reused (but i might be wrong about the numbers).

if you want, look for shiplines and climate. i saw some good movies about what happens to the clouds where there are ship lines.

anyway, gone to sleep now, will read anything you write back tomorrow ;)

9 years ago
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Yeah, I can see the problem there. One should be able to do some basic lab scale experiments for certain particles. Some will take longer to form droplets, and obviously a lab-scale experiment will operate under very idealized conditions, but it can give you a better understanding for how certain particles interact at different humidity levels.

I'm currently not doing any research, I'm just there to make sure that everything works as intended. It's the most boring job I've ever had, as everything works. Nothing for me to do, so I just end up surfing the net :(
Currently they're mainly using the sludge as fertilizers, though due to people with opinions who have decided that it's dangerous a lot of sludge is sadly not used. Some is also used to produce methane gas which in turn is used for parts of the public transportation in Stockholm.

9 years ago
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Lab scale is done. but it's hard to simulate the conditions in the upper atmosphere.

some of the sludge is indeed dangerous, but still usable. if you tell me whats "dangerous" i can help you
Private is better ;)

we can stop bothering the nice people of SG with our ranting

9 years ago
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Some sludge can be very dangerous, and if you don't treat sewage sludge, it's not good for you because it can contain all kinds of nasty bacteria and such, but of course we don't just scoop it up and dump it on the fields.

And before we cut off, I think I should probably give a quick explanation why I get so upset with people who basically are science deniers. The more I work with these things, the more I notice how much people like this get in the way, and they are getting in the way of my work. It's stressful when you are working on something that's going to make a major improvement to an area, only to have a few people who listen to some guy on the internet just sit there and get in the way of everything, potentially delaying a project for years. Recycling has become a hot topic for certain people who intentionally sabotage the system, because they've decided that everything we "recycle" gets dumped in the poorer parts of Africa. Yes, there is a problem with certain hard to recycle things getting shipped there, but the cardboard box you recycle won't get shipped there, yet you have people dumping plastic in the recycling containers because they've decided that recycling is bad, based on someone with no insight or understanding of how it works saying that it is bad. That's just a simple example, but it's sadly going on in all fields.

9 years ago
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All true my friend. all true
and sad

9 years ago
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Replying here as a combined answer to both of you.

Possibly we need to step back and ask ourselves wheter to proclaim theories as truth. As is being done with the climate warming theory. As you suggested with the evolution theory. I have not heard any reasonable claim against but then again i did not research into that. And as long as i have no point against that i tend to accept that as a theory in trial. (yet i wouldn't dare to call it a truth)

What upsets me is that zealotry about a human induced climate change. A proven fact is that climate changed drastically in the past fully without human interference. Its fully possible that we just notice the outskirts of one of the many temperature hickups that happened in the past. (not saying that its a must)

I fully agree that there is a lot of medial echo around the topic. Alot of stakes in and around it seems. So its less of a debate but much more of a PR battle imho. It could be easily the efforts of the fading nuclear energy companys that heats up debates and spread misinformation.

On topic: no i'm definitely not a environmental engineer - not even close. But even saying so it came to my attention that CO2 is pretty ineffective as an agent for one-way beam reflection. Methane on the other hand is pretty much aggressive. I've seen a few diagrams that support the theory of a human induced climate change. But then again there are alot of naysayers. Alot of critic coming from the solar cycles which are at right now approaching a low point which means less warming coming from the sun. I've also briefly covered the CO2 effectiveness which is another.

My plea would be to stop making claims as truth. This behaviour has led to many conflicts already. Just dropping the keyword: the holy crusade

The big IMHO is that the whole thing is a PR going to cover up the real problems we cause. Its seemingly possible to fix CO2 emission. But i doubt that will fix our consumption of resources we are exploiting without thinking of tomorrow. Generally we need to a transition from a market driven economy to a more directed one. Else we have too many stakeholders against. Possibly inspired from the chinese one. Not saying that they are doing all fine but they seem to acknowledge problems and step up to solve them. For instance its well known bigger industrial areas cause alot of smog. Recently goverment decided that they move a good inch from their legion of coal power plants to more nuclear and green power. (not that i support burning nuclear fuel but thats another topic).

9 years ago
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What upsets me is that zealotry about a human induced climate change. A proven fact is that climate changed drastically in the past fully without human interference. Its fully possible that we just notice the outskirts of one of the many temperature hickups that happened in the past. (not saying that its a must)

It is true that climate changes naturally, but here we need to look at how it changes. The natural climate change follows a rather predictable set of cycles and sub-cycles (based on things like distance from the sun, solar activity and so on, some sub-cycles are a couple of years, other a couple of hundred years and so on). Currently we are stepping outside this predictable pattern.

It could be easily the efforts of the fading nuclear energy companys that heats up debates and spread misinformation.

At the scale that research is done on the topic, the amount of people who would have to be "payed off" for the idea that there are a couple of companies that pays for specific research becomes, well, unlrealistic. The debate in media is terrible, for good information we need to look to the research that is being done.

But even saying so it came to my attention that CO2 is pretty ineffective as an agent for one-way beam reflection. Methane on the other hand is pretty much aggressive.

Methane is a far stronger greenhouse gas, that is true, but this is ignoring the quantity aspect of it. If you look at the combined "strength" of the CO2 that we emit and compare it to the combined "strength" of the CH4 that we emit, then CO2 is still a far larger factor. One mole of CH4 is, while it is active is worth roughly 30 moles of CO2. But just look at how much CO2 we produce and compare it to how much CH4 we produce. There is another factor to consider and that is lifespan. CH4 has an average lifespan of about 12 years, while CO2 has a far longer lifespan. The lifespan of CO2 is dependant on how much of it there already is, as it does not naturally decay any further, but rather something else has to deal with it. (Also worth pointing out is that CH4 decays into CO2 and water, water being another greenhouse gas, but it days not stay in the atmosphere for very long)

My plea would be to stop making claims as truth. This behaviour has led to many conflicts already. Just dropping the keyword: the holy crusade

What riles me up is when people who don't actually have any base-knowledge of the topic makes statements about it. And yes, I get upset when someone who believes in global warming makes statements that are just opinions and with "facts" taken out of thin air.

The big IMHO is that the whole thing is a PR going to cover up the real problems we cause.

I would really like to see some evidence of these claims.

9 years ago
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Yet the nuclear and power generators that power the servers and your computer is fine :)

9 years ago
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Actually radiation is a natural thing, of course nuclear powerhouses cause in tons of radiating trash, but. After we become civilization type I it won't be necessary :P

9 years ago
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I'm very much against nuclear power and as KillingArts points out, we will always leave some form of footprint.

Indeed radiation is naturally occurring in the same way the combustion of fossil fuels is a naturally occurring process, though the most pertinent issue is the extent to which mankind's use of fossil fuels have now become detrimental to the earth :)

9 years ago
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I am too against nuclear power, I'm also kinda scared cause near me in Cech Republic is really old and out of order powerhouse. It reminds me of Chernobyl. Also, radiation scares the sh*t out of me and makes me shake with shiver on my back. I believe in nuclear fusion, which also generates radiation, but not as much and is more effective.

9 years ago
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question is, what of all the bad things we do to our environment we consider necessary. i would say, electrical power is kind of necessary for our society*. retail boxes not really. ;)

*although we could use more clean power sources, of course

9 years ago
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Hehe yeah I agree :)

9 years ago
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Watch Revolution, yes we need power :P Also you can read Blackout which explains how easy it is for us to lose it all, even if not forever, short blackout can cause alot of trouble too. Funny how we put whole civilization on such weak and brittle source.

9 years ago
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No, its the way how people 'dispose' of plastic that make it not cool for the enviroment.

Also there is something called "Steel Cases".

9 years ago
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If we really cared about that we wouldn't use cars, nor electricity, for that matter. There's a line that draws where we want to care, and where we don't want to. In this manner... I think it is pretty much a lesser evil, compared to most things, The satisfaction of having them in my bookshelf classifies the game boxes as cool, IMO..

9 years ago
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If we really cared about that we wouldn't use cars, nor electricity, for that matter.

the world is not black and white. it's not we care 100% or not at all. while electricity and transportation are kind of necessary, other (maybe smaller) things might not be. yes, mass production of retail game boxes or other "smaller" things might not be as bad as the millions of gas-based cars we have. but just because one evil is lesser than the other, that doesn't mean we don't need to care at all. ;)

There's a line that draws where we want to care, and where we don't want to.

yep, that's our big problem. in most cases we just don't want to care at all. i cannot exlude myself from that. that line is simply in the wrong place. ;)

9 years ago
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indeed i read on intel that it reduces like 100% contamination and only need a 24 hr server running.

9 years ago
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They are when you have a shitty internet connexion and it is faster to use the cd than downloading everything from steam ^^

9 years ago
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yes, that's the one exception where retail boxes still make a lot of sense.

9 years ago
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Or deluxe editions when there's physical extras that are actually worth it.

Still, I regularly come across games that are around 25% cheaper as physical copy than as digital ones (like any new title from Acti-Blizzard). Simply because physical copies convert VAT-excluded US dollar list price to VAT-included euro list price, where digital storefronts go 1 dollar = 1 euro.
If I want one of those I get the physical copy instead.

9 years ago
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+1

9 years ago
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Holy crap, I started really big discussion ^^

9 years ago
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basically, yes

9 years ago
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Yeah, you don't need the CD / DVD at all. It is only helpful to install from the media if you have slow download speed or monthly cap for downloaded data :)

9 years ago
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There you go, also. An extra to comments above.

9 years ago
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i miss the days when you could download a game with anyones CD key, that was like back in windows 95/98

its sad all cd keys are one person use only

9 years ago
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Ahhh.....the good old days :)

9 years ago
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Ah yes, the lazy days of pirating!

9 years ago
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put it on your shelf, don't just chuck it

9 years ago
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This physical version requires Steam also...

View attached image.
9 years ago
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ALL ABOARD!

9 years ago
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Nice one. I love trains!! Thanks man you just made my day.

9 years ago
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Yes but installing from CD usally is faster

9 years ago
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Physical copies are just a small convenience, you don't need to wait for a download via the internet. In case you have slow internet connection, its an interesting advantage, if you have a fast connection, you shouldn't bother. As users have stated above, the physical installation disc is useless without the cd-key, so if you somehow lose your steam account or whatever, you can't do anything with the physical disc.

9 years ago
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I would suggest keeping the physical copy around, on a shelf or somewhere out of the way, just in case someday your account gets stolen, it will help you get it back.

9 years ago
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all you need in that case is the key, btw. you don't need a photo of the box or something. i stored an old key in a text file, just for this purpose (my account never got stolen so far, but you never know ^^).

9 years ago
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When I needed to recover my original CS 1.6 game through Steam/Valve, they made me write a number on the physical cover of the Half Life game next to where the key is printed and send them a picture to prove that I owned the game.

9 years ago
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In short, you will not need the physical copy of the game, because you can download it through Steam.
Long version, you may want to keep the physical copy to cut back on downloads or if you account gets hijacked (which is pretty uncommon) to prove ownership.

9 years ago
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Bought Half-Life Antology once - installed everything and when it came to enter the code - I've found out that the serial was already used!
I'll never buy a physical shit again =/

9 years ago
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Did you contact the person that sold you it? If that's the case they should either refund you or provide another copy. If that doesn't work, you should contact steam with good prove of purchase and the key that didn't work and they might be able to help.

But that's some bad luck. I never had that happen to me. From all the games that I activated with a key (most bought online), only one didn't work and I got a new key from it.

9 years ago
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My steam account was started with the physical copy of Elder Scrolls Anthology (50% sale discount + 10% Employee discount while I was working at Walmart at the time)

Installing off the disc was much faster than downloading it (Varies with your actual internet though)

But, keeping a physical copy associated with your account has one major benefit. If my account was to ever get hacked, I still have the game and CD-Key that I can take photos of of the actual very first game on my account which makes it much easier to prove the account is mine.

9 years ago
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Personally, I like to have my physical copies just sitting in my desk. I sometimes like to just look through them and see something that I then want to play again, that I won't see when scrolling through my steam library. Plus I like having physical copies of things, just like with music (I have a ton of cd's even though I never use them).

9 years ago
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I like to hold the game.... + collectros edition with artbook (like real artbook, not pdf shit), figure and so on can't be buy on steam :P

9 years ago
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This reminds me that I need to go check eBay for reasonably priced SWAT 4 listings.

9 years ago
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if you get a physical copy of a game, that requires Steam, after you link it to your Steam account, can you throw away the CD and have the chance to download it from Steam???

why would you want to throw away a perfectly good frisbee or coaster? // yes though you will download it from steam if/when you need it ;)

9 years ago
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